Crates / Compare / memchr vs tantivy
Rust crates side by side · data Oct 27, 2026
memchr vs tantivy
Short answerBy steady daily use, memchr is bigger: 4,765,439 real downloads a day against 53,551 for tantivy (89.0x). 2,274 crates depend on memchr and 337 on tantivy. memchr last shipped 4 months ago, tantivy 10 days ago.
memchr
Widely usedWidely used and losing ground.
2,274 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.
Provides extremely fast (uses SIMD on x86_64, aarch64 and wasm32) routines for 1, 2 or 3 byte search and single substring search.
tantivy
EstablishedEstablished and steady.
337 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.
Search engine library
memchrtantivy · 100% = that crate's normal quiet day, so a spike to 300% is triple its usual traffic
Every number, side by side
| Same window, same method | memchr | tantivy |
|---|---|---|
| Real downloads a day | 4,765,439 | 53,551 |
| Crates that depend on it | 2,274 | 337 |
| Last release | 2.8.3, 4 months ago | 0.27.0, 10 days ago |
| Trend vs the field | -11% | +7% |
| Release-window share | 0.0% | 4.6% |
| Downloads in the window | 420,143,999 | 4,977,596 |
| All-time downloads | 1,608,088,582 | 20,975,756 |
| Versions published | 47 | 64 |
| License | Unlicense OR MIT | MIT |
| MSRV | 1.61 | 1.88 |
| First published | Jun 11, 2015 | Aug 11, 2016 |
Which to pick
- Downloads tell you what is common, not what fits. Each crate's own description above says what it is for; when the jobs differ, pick by the job.
- When both fit, prefer the one more crates depend on (memchr, 2,274 dependents): more eyes, more answered questions, and you may already have it in your tree.
- Check the release dates against your own pace: memchr 4 months ago, tantivy 10 days ago.
Also in this space
Method
Real downloads = the median day with no release that day or the day before, from the crates.io API (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 26, 2026). Raw crates.io counts include CI and bots and run high (why); the method is from our 90-day study.
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Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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